​We've been running our Employee Feedback Culture Survey for some time to help us gauge trends and needs. Over time, we have seen a general uplift both in capability and willingness to give and receive feedback at work. Our latest review supports these general trends but still reveals some difficulties.

For example, 40% of respondents disagreed with the statement "in my company we celebrate success and recognise people's achievements", with a further 13% neither agreeing or disagreeing. (On the positive side, just under half of those surveyed agreed with the statement).

The survey also found:

40% said that giving and receiving feedback was not valued, widely practiced or done well in their organisation

43% don't feel that they or their contribution is valued

​As we have previously discussed here (and elsewhere) recognising contribution and achievement works - we all work better when we consider that we are valued. Many people are demotivated when they feel unnoticed or unappreciated. Giving and receiving feedback on our performance helps us to build (or maintain) confidence and boost skills.

43% don't feel that they or their contribution is valued

Celebrating successes, particularly in teams, presents an excellent opportunity for all to pause, reflect, evaluate and mark a project or performance period with some degree of emotional connection. This doesn't need to be a huge or expensive activity. This enables us to learn, to feel good and to connect with colleagues. It helps to mark the completion of something and take a breath before starting on the next thing. When we talk to managers of really busy teams, they will often say that they don't carve out time for this and can see how tired and sometimes jaded their people are as a result. These activities do not need to be difficult - they require intention, time and some skill. The benefits are certainly worth the investment. ​

If you're an employer how would your people rate your company? If you're an employee, how appreciated do you feel? We'd love to hear your thoughts and experiences on how success is celebrated in your company. Do leave any comments below or email us.

Practicing some form of meditation, like mindfulness, is super fashionable now. It is considered by some to be as necessary to them as their daily workout. But is this yet another example of an over hyped trend or is there real benefit?

Mindfulness (and similar) meditation is a Buddhist-inspired practice that trains people to focus their mind on their experience (such as sounds, feelings, thoughts) in the current moment and to be fully present and aware. This usually involves a quiet space, breathing routines, relaxation and so on. People are often encouraged to develop a daily practice working either on their own or following guided meditations via phone apps or audio.

What is the evidence for the benefits and applications of meditation?

Practices such as mindfulness meditation have been found to provide moderate benefits in reducing pain, depression, anxiety, insomnia and stress in some studies. However many scientists remain concerned at what they consider to be the overblown hype around mindfulness given the limited studies and evidence to support it. In 2014 a group of scientists led by psychologist Nicholas Van Dam looked at these previous studies, collectively including over 3,500 participants, and found essentially no evidence for benefits related to enhancing attention, aiding sleep or controlling weight. This does not suggest that the practice is necessarily ineffective but that there is as yet little supporting evidence as to the benefits or applications.

Mindfulness in the workplace

Here’s where the effectiveness of the practice gets even more sketchy. The hype around it confidently says that mindfulness meditation will help with resilience, rational thinking, job satisfaction, clarity of thought, etc. It is hard to disassociate these claims with the increasingly lucrative market in promoting apps and books about it (a market valued in 2017 as worth $1 billion in the US alone). American behavioural scientists Kathleen D. Vohs and Andrew C. Hafenbrack recently wrote about the unintended negative consequences of mindfulness use in the workplace. Their studies suggest that the sense of calm achieved by mindfulness practice actually reduces motivation at work.

Keep an open, but sceptical, mind

“Overall, I suspect that a large number of the health promises will not be fulfilled, mostly because therapies, phone apps and other interventions are being rushed to market without sufficiently rigorous testing and appropriate implementation,” Van Dam says. “But given what we’ve seen to date, I suspect evidence may accumulate supporting mindfulness practices for anxiety, depression and stress-related conditions.”

Many of us at Managing Change find mindfulness practice beneficial and will continue with it. We won't be recommending it for spurious purposes or overblown benefits though!

In other words, do they adequately notice and support people struggling with stress or other difficulties, and even better, largely prevent them happening in the first place?

Increasingly, well-intentioned companies seek to provide better work environments for their people by providing a range of extra, healthy benefits. These might include free fruit, stress and resilience training, family BBQ events, gym membership, and so on. Given that these are highly visible and often expensive to provide, these companies should be applauded for taking the initiative. Often however these benefits are not met with increased well-being and resilience in staff, whether measured by staff satisfaction surveys, sickness absence or people leaving. This understandably causes many companies to scratch their heads and wonder what is happening.

Almost always the problem is with the culture and in particular, with managers. Managers who can create supportive, inspired teams of people and who have the emotional intelligence to regulate their own emotions and notice those of others, experience significantly fewer problems from work-stressed team members. If your manager is unapproachable, lacking insight or simply lacking the capacity or energy to support you, you will continue to struggle. In the course of that struggle, your work performance will dip, your personal happiness will suffer and, eventually, so will your mental health - unless you leave the company first. It is often said that people don't resign from companies they resign from their managers.

The cost of absenteeism due to poor mental health is said to cost UK businesses £50 billion annually (and that probably doesn't take into account the knock-on effects to colleagues and clients, and certainly the human cost to the person and their family). Happy workplaces make for better business. Making emotional intelligence one of the key selection criteria in hiring and promotion decisions, and developing EQ in managers, will do much to create happier workplaces.

If you'd like to discuss our EQ assessments, development programmes or psychometrics, do get in touch - enquiries@managingchange.org.uk.

Last month it was reported that the economic cost of poor mental health in the UK is £99 billion a year [Stevenson-Farmer Report - The Times, 26/10/17]. Clearly, these aren't all stress-related conditions, but a great many are. The report quotes a return of £4.20 on every £1 invested in improving mental health at work. The report's co-author and CEO of mental health charity MIND says " every employer... has a responsibility to support employees with mental health problems and promote the mental well-being of their entire workforce".

Clearly companies need to be able to spot those affected and support them promptly and effectively. But more strategically...